I'm with Emily and Brinkley talking about random stuff when I look at my watch for the time, 1:32. I remember what I promised Lisa, "I need to go find Ryder, his mom put me in charge tonight," I laugh along with Emily. "I'll come," Brinkley offers.
"No it's fine Brinks, I didn't drink anything either," I tell her then break away from them to go find him.
Eventually I do and he's drinking with some of the football boys. Oh no.
"Hey guys, Ryder we should get going," I turn from the guys to him quietly. "I'm fiiiiine," he starts mumbling.
I grab his arm helping him get up from the chair. "Aww pretty little girlfriend come to rescue you Ryder?" One of the guys reaches for me.
"Don't touch her," Ryder tells the guy harshly. "Dang alright alright." He backs up looking amused.
I wrap my arm around Ryder leading him through the crowd to the front door. "Your cute when your all protective," he grins down at me. "If you think I'm protective now you should see me at my family gatherings with my abuelas enchiladas, let's just say it's not so pretty for my cousins," I smile thinking about it.
"Haha I'd kill to see that, I can imagine you chasing them with one of those flipflops," he chuckles. "Chanclas, and, since 2019 my moms been making me wear tennis shoes, double knotted just in case." I joke and he laughs a little.
"I didn't know you were Hispanic," he randomly comments getting into the passenger side of his car after handing me his keys. "My bloodlines kind of weird, my mom is half Hispanic but her mom, my abuela has a lot of family so most of my family is Hispanic, I'm kinda a fourth Hispanic, a fourth jewish, and half all American," I tell him.
I look up seeing Brinkley and Justin coming towards us. "Hey we're heading back too, Claire's just going to take my car later, mind if we ride with y'all?" She asks.
"Yep that's fine," I smile at them as they both get in the back. I continue my conversation with Ryder.
"What about you?" I ask him, "what?" He reply's lost.
"I told you my background, what's yours?"
"Oh my mom is American although both her parents were Jewish, which is cool that your Jewish too she'd love to hear that, and my dad was French," I can't happen to not notice the was but I decide to ask about that another time.
"Your both jewish?" Brinkley asks confused. "I'm a fourth Jewish and he's like a third Jewish, so somewhere in our bloodlines," I tell her. She simply nods thinking. She's been doing a lot of that lately, I should really ask her about it soon.
"Okay... Justin I'm gonna need the address," I look at him through the rear view mirror.
"I'll just stay at Ryder's," He tells me.
"Alright we'll go by there for y'all and I'll have Em pick up me and Brinkley from there on her way back," I tell everyone getting nods and mumbles.
Eventually through the drive Ryder falls asleep, and Justin and Brinkley are each just scrolling through their phones until I pull up at Ryders house.
I unbuckle getting out along with the two in the backseat. I go around to Ryders side waking up him up by poking his face making him groan which also makes me laugh.
"Come on you big baby you need to go inside," I tell him as he sleepily opens his eyes getting up almost stumbling, I wrap my arm around him to help.
We all walk to the door and Ryder types in the code. I notice his mom on the couch and she sees us and comes over. "Hey dears," she yawns. "Thank you hun," she hugs me. "Jus you staying over?"
"If it's okay," he smiles, "always," she smiles back.
"You two aswell?" She turns to me and Brinkley. "No thank you Lisa, Emily's coming by to pick us up," Brinkley answers.
"Which Reminds me, here's Ryders keys I locked the car and he's kind of out of it right now so," I joke.
"Thank you so much, your an angel, I'll see you sometime this week I'm sure," she's been used to seeing me by now. I've come over a few times to plan things for our little fake dating scheme.
"She's coming to game night," Ryder yawns.
"You are?" Brinkley asks, I nod.
"Thank God it was my week to have to bring someone for even teams and I was not looking forward to asking Becky Carlson," he shutters.
Emily's car horn honking makes me look over. "We better hurry or Emily's gonna fall asleep," Brinkley jokes, we both know she totally would.
"See ya Rhodes," I wave to Ryder, "See ya Campbell, bye Brinks," He answers back, Brinkley waves and we both leave.
...
Emily pulls up to my house first with it being the closest. "Brinks wanna just stay over?" I ask her. I'd ask Emily too but she has to watch her little brother early tomorrow.
"Umm yea that'd be great, Em I can meet you to get my car tomorrow,"
"Okie doke, Hasta Luego amigas," Emily waves pulling out.
...
Once me and Brinkley are showered and in Pajamas, I let her use mine, I decide to ask her what's been on her mind.
"Brinks, what's been on your mind lately?"
"What?" She looks down at her hands.
"I know when something's up, I promise you can talk to me, I know we hadn't hung out much till recently but we're still best friends," I offer her a smile.
"Okay we'll," she takes a breath, "my mom, my birth mom sent a letter last week, my mom-mom let me read it. She's asking if I wanted to meet up, for the first time. Helena said it's totally up to me but, I don't really know what to do," She looks at me helplessly, I wrap my arms around her for a hug.
"Whatever you decide to do will be okay Brinkley, you've got a great family who loves you, and it's okay if you want to meet with your mom just to talk or if you don't, no matter what you'll have plenty of people here that love you."
"Thanks Cares," she sniffles. "Of course," I tell her.
"There's one more thing," she bites her mouth thinking.
"You can tell me,"
"I just, I don't want you to hurt Ryder. It's not that I think you will, it's just that you just got out of a bad break up and you haven't shown any emotion to it, I'm just worried." That's what's been going on. I forgot Ryder was like a brother to her and I didn't even think about how it could hurt her. Even with us fake dating I still wouldn't want to hurt him and I want her to know that. I wish I could just tell her and make it easy, so she wouldn't have to find out for some reason.
But I can't.
"I promise I won't hurt him Brinks, I know I just came out of a break up two weeks ago, but Ryder, he's honestly like...like an angel in a way, he saved me." I tell her trying to sound convincing.
"Okay," she sniffs smiling at me.
I'm glad me and Brinkley finally had a good conversation. I've always spent so much time with Lane and I never really had many conversations like this with Brinkley. Now I know that after all this time the person who was my real friend was Brinkley.
YOU ARE READING
Red Is Your Color
Fiksi Remaja"He was my Ex and he was your Ex best friends, see where I'm going with this?" I look directly at him meeting his big brown eyes, "Not rea-" "We date!...Fake date of-course." Caroline Campbell Had a great senior year going for her especially when it...
